Helen Leister says it was the railroad job that spurred Volney into popping the question and set her to thinking about wedding gowns, back in the spring of 1938. The country was still dragging itself out of the Depression then; caution was the order of the day, even when it came to marriage. But when Leister started spending her nights hurtling across the land at 100 miles an hour in a futuristic, silver-sided dream machine, Volney suddenly realized he couldn’t live without her.
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Then, in 1937, Helen got a crack at a more exciting job. The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad was hiring stewardesses for its astounding new twin Zephyrs, diesel-powered stainless-steel trains that ran at incredible speeds–as much as 116 mph–from Chicago to Minneapolis and Denver. The first of the Zephyrs, the Pioneer, had created a sensation in ’34 when it made a demonstration run from Denver straight into Chicago’s Century of Progress exhibition in half the usual time. The public was smitten.
“We were part nurse, part hostess, part information bureau,” Leister says. There was a single stewardess on each train, “pacing the chair cars, trying to keep everybody happy.” She could usually count on a sick baby and a few passengers who overindulged in the bar car. But the most common problem was simple motion sickness: with the Zephyr eating up the track and the landscape streaming giddily by, even the soberest passengers could find themselves a little green around the gills.
The one she picked is a stunner: a body-skimming, wasp-waisted midnight blue velvet slashed nearly to the waist in back. The gently flared skirt kisses the floor, and the sleeves, tight as a second skin from elbow to wrist, terminate in points that echo the deep V of the back. In place of a traditional bridal headpiece Leister wore a tricorn hat of the same dark velvet tipped insouciantly over one eye. For the nuptials a piece of the blue fabric snapped into the back to raise the neckline; for a night at the Drake, the deep V (a 1930s couture trademark) could be opened, a fancier belt added, and the dramatic long sleeves, designed like a rip-away suit, could be shed. No gloves, no heavy veil, no froufrou, it was all color and fluid line, as much a departure from traditional wedding attire as the streamliner was from the iron horse that preceded it.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Charles Eshelman.
